I think it's bat**** insane in itself to sell a gun to someone with a history of mental illness, though I am not sure if the AZ shooter was ever professionally diagnosed. I don't understand the American love of guns, and never will... but I don't judge either. It is what it is. But I really think that things could be better as the rate of gun violence is . Not perfect, but better.
It’s not like we want to sell insane people guns. I think that is, in all honesty, a bit of hyperbole. The point is, what do you want to do about it? What system to you propose? This guy, he was not diagnosed with any mental illness, so how do you force people to be evaluated? Is it with every gun purchase? Or do you have to get a license in order to get a gun, and that license requires mental evaluation every X years?
We like to look at this case and say, “Oh, here is a case of an obviously insane man, yet somehow he got a hold of a gun and went on a rampage. Surely there is something we could have done to stop it.” Sounds reasonable. But there’s more than that one crazy guy in America. There are about 52 million of American households owning roughly 260 million guns. At the very least (assuming one person in the household owns all the guns), that’s 52 million psychiatric evaluations every X years. That’s a low ball number. How many state psychiatrists are there? Can private psychiatrists give clearance (if so…man there is some great chance for corruption)? How much time will this add to gun purchase? But above and beyond all this is a simple question; Is this proper to enforce over the practice of one’s rights? You’d have to do something similar to this to have had a chance (and this is assuming he wouldn’t have just went and purchased the gun illegally) of stopping this man, this time. He didn’t have a recorded history of mental problems. He failed a drug test, tested positive for pot. Yeah, smoking weed is illegal, but does it indicate mental problems? Or at least significant enough problems to question one’s ability to own a fire arm? He got, what was it, kicked out of school? People felt he was creepy and didn’t feel safe around him? Does anyone dismissed from school for being creepy get a psychiatric evaluation? How long till a group of kids just accuse someone they don’t like of being “creepy”?
Being creepy isn’t a crime. The reason he went so long without some state forced evaluation was because until this last point, he had not done anything so wrong that it required state intervention and evaluation. He had no criminal record, or not one that I’ve heard of yet, he was not a felon, he had no record of mental disorders. He got a gun, but is there anything reasonable that could have been done to have stopped him at that point? No, the simple answer is no. We all look back on this event through the glasses of hindsight. We say now it’s obvious that he’s crazy. We say now there should have been something we could have done because it looks so crystal clear to us now. But then, it wasn’t; and the means necessary to make it so we catch these statistical outliers is incredibly invasive and harmful to the exercise of all our rights. We must understand the consequences of freedom.
So we got this guy who got through the system, did something horrible, completely inhuman. Do we let the fear of that, of some other guy getting through the system, take over? What do we gain by giving into the fear? More government, more intrusions into our rights; that’s what we get. Is it worth it? If one right, why not another? Perhaps we should curtail freedom of speech. People incite to riot, look at all the “vengeful rhetoric” now. It’s dangerous, riots are destructive and deadly. And besides, people may say icky things you don’t like. And while we’re at it, look at religion. See how dangerous that is, the strict adherence to the ideology in the right environment can breed the right amount of hate for a forever war. And let’s not forget about cults, suicide and all that sort of stuff. Maybe psychiatric evaluation for all people wishing to be theists. Gotta make sure you know.
The more we give into the fear, the more we lose. Time and time again, when we give in, we lose. Terrorism is only the latest in a long line of things to fear. We get the Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, TSA which is apparently cleared to grope and photograph you naked. Was it worth it? No, the simple answer is no. Terrorism is a low probability event, even lower than the lone gunman probability. And here’s a little secret, given enough time it will happen again. But if we let these probabilities rule us, we will find ourselves with nothing. Hopelessly locked away in our own homes afraid of the interaction of others because in that interaction there is danger. Fear will bind us. There will be another lone gunman, there will be another terrorist attack; these are just facts of living. But living afraid, that’s hardly life. That’s merely survival.
I will take my chances, I will accept all the probabilities and dangers and duties so long as I can remain free. The alternative just isn’t all that great.
